Nestle finds horse meat in beef pasta meals

British Meat Processors Association Director Stephen Rossides arrives for an emergency meeting with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and representatives of various leading retailers, at the government food and farming department, Defra, headquarters in London, as information is released revealing the widespread use of horseheat in supermarket beef products. Concerns about the use of horsemeat burst into the spotlight earlier this year, after it emerged that some beef products contained horse DNA, and now the whole industry faces public pressure to test their products and reveal the findings. (AP Photo / John Stillwell)

A statue of a horse's head, above a horsemeat butcher shop in Paris, Friday Feb 15, 2013. Tests have found horsemeat in school meals, hospital food and restaurant dishes in Britain, officials said Friday, as the scandal over adulterated meat spread beyond frozen supermarket products. French French Consumer Affairs Minister Benoit Hamon said Thursday that it appeared fraudulent meat sales over several months reached across 13 countries and 28 companies. He identified French meat wholesaler Spanghero as a major culprit. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon)

Nestle SA has withdrawn beef pasta meals from sale in Italy and Spain after tests found horse DNA.

Horse meat has found its way into ready-to-eat meals sold across Europe in a meat mislabeling scandal that has shaken the food industry.

The world's biggest food and drinks maker said in a statement that the level of horse DNA in its Buitoni Beef Ravioli and Beef Tortellini meals was above the 1 percent threshold that the U.K. Food Safety Agency uses to indicate likely adulteration or gross negligence.

Nestle said the contaminated beef was supplied by H.J. Schypke, a German company, used by one of Nestle's suppliers.

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Nestle also withdrew from sale frozen meat sold as Lasagnes à la Bolognaise Gourmandes to catering businesses in France.

Speaking to reporters at the company's full-year results presentation last week, Nestle's chief executive officer, Paul Bulcke, said reports that horse meat had found its way into food products in Europe had adversely affected the entire global food industry but his company had "very stringent and very disciplined policies with our suppliers" to prevent contaminants from entering its products.

"Also quality has a price," Bulcke said. "So that is why we sometimes are a little bit more expensive, maybe, because these things, they cost money."